Blogging for Dummies

Did anyone else notice 21 posts this month? Okay...half of them said “no post today,” but whatever. I thought about penning my own “Blogging for Dummies” how-to manual, but it turns out that “Blogging for Dummies” [in addition to being redundant] is quite a serious trademark infringement. Who knew?

So in lieu of a whole volume, I will just list what I consider to be the keys of successful blogging:

• Generously define success
• Have easy access to caffeine [Most blogs are best written after about 840 mg of caffeine.] This blog sponsored by Sixbucks
• Blog in the Palin era
• Have no serious loyalty to the truth
• Don’t let the mortified looks of your family discourage you from taking notes at every family event
• Apparently….suggesting upcoming dirt on your mom’s visit is good for blog traffic…..[I see how many time you checked the site yesterday Sis.]
• Have a bunch of friends with nothing better to do than read blog postings…

=)

Visit Highlights

As previously mentioned, my mom and niece Michal were in for a visit this weekend. While the visit was actually fantastic, there were a COUPLE of moments that were a little tough-and-go:

• A minor imbroglio about whether shrimp, in fact, fell under the “no face” rule for my vegetarian niece. I guess, on second thoughts, the person doing the eating really OUGHT to be the arbiter of that.
• Michal found out that her birthday present/Southwest airline ticket only cost me $5
• The awkward moment where we had to challenge mom’s assertion that it was Michal who had smoked in the bathroom [kidding, kidding, there was no smoking in the house! ]
• The Mexican standoff on butter vs. margarine for the apple crumble [my fat-loving ass did not have a dog in THAT fight]
• Michal found out what Molly’s bully sticks are made of [you’ll just have to look it up]

Overall it was an AWESOME weekend. We (and the gucci couch) are ready for more visitors!

Mom's visit

We just finished our long weekend with my mom & my 24 year old niece, Michal [that’s right – HER name is Michal. The names are just a McC thing…]. I thought I would offer some highlights from the weekend:

• My sister Nic helpfully reminded me that “Michal doesn’t eat anything with a face”. Well now…whatever happened to just saying “vegetarian”? I don’t really need to think of my food’s features when deciding who to serve it to.
• My OTHER sister’s contribution to the weekend’s itinerary – “take them to that hang-gliding place. You could see the nude beach through the camera zoom lens!” [Mom loved it, by the way]
• With mom AND Rita cooking, I got to wash dishes I never even knew we had.
• Michal and I returned from our dog-walk around the neighborhood to find my mom regaling the yard guys to the point that they were Laughing. Out. Loud. And I’m pretty sure they don’t speak a word of English.
• Only ONE of Rita’s really, really good bottles of wine is gone. [And that’s from BEFORE mom got here =)]

Tune in tomorrow for some of the lowlights =) [smiley face down payment]

My Editor...

....missed a deadline today, so no post. [I thought it best to thoroughly edit any posts about my mother's visit - lest I permanently end up in the dog-house.] Will hopefully be back on-line tomorrow.

Air Conditions

Now I know how Tipper Gore must feel.

So while we purchased not one, but TWO portable A/C’s, it turns out we’re not actually supposed to USE them. Okay, okay – I may be exaggerating a LITTLE…but usage is definitely frowned upon. At first I thought it was because we didn’t want to run up the electric bill. But then I realized that we were trying to REDUCE, reuse, recycle. We are supposed to use these things “for when we are sleeping”. Ummmm, call me nuts, but shouldn’t we use them at the hottest point of the day…not the coolest? =) [smiley face]

And let me just tell you, Rita can be outside, behind the house, in the garden and STILL pick up the nano-second I sneak in and turn the air on [of course, it’s a dead giveaway when Molly sprints from the other end of the steam house for a drop of precious coolness for her fur-lined self].

I keep trying to work out a cap-and-trade system with Rita. Like…I will recycle one more yogurt container for 20 minutes of A/C. And I’ll even wash it out like you’re supposed to. But really, I think Rita and I ARE a cap-and-trade system. All her conservation and meanwhile I haven’t turned a light off since 1997.

Talk about an inconvenient truth.

No Post Today

Sorry gang, with my mom and niece in da house - I am focused on my hostessing skills and don't have time to blog. But I should be back on-line on Monday.

Job Evaluation

I usually have a firm rule to not blog about work. I call it the “this-blog-is-all-fun-and-games-til-McC-gets-fired” rule. That is why you have not heard anything about the job description that one of my supervisors prepared that included this honest-to-god, I-am-NOT-even-embellishing job requirement for her staff:

“No holloering. Unless it’s positive.” [Her spelling, not mine]

But I recently got my 6 month review and I figure it’s okay to blog about work if it’s about me, right? I may have changed some of the words, but here’s what I think my boss was trying to tell me:

• It’s great that you are feeling more comfortable in your role, but please quit using the f-bomb on all your conference calls.
• We’d like to recommend a SLIGHTLY different approach to team-building in that we would like to see you actually….ummm, quit scaring off your team
• We’re glad you’re a VP too, but “because I said so” is not an appropriate response to a policy question.
• Would you mind not wearing those khaki’s with a pen stain on the pocket where you ran them through the washing machine?

And the best advice I’ve gotten yet…"You know…you should be suspicious if your team laughs at ALL your jokes.”